Chapter 1: The Supreme Ruler of Evil’s First Foray
Chapter 1: The Supreme Ruler of Evil’s First Foray
MEMORIES of days long past were what she held on to for emotional support. She clung, most of all, to the precious words of her beloved father like she would a treasure.
“Listen well, Mia. All of your powers exist for realizing our ambition.”
“Yes, Father.”
Every day the father would speak of their ambition, and the daughter would obediently listen.
“I know that someday, we will definitely realize our ambition. For it is our long-cherished desire; one we shall never compromise on!”
“Yes, Father.”
She listened to this same story, every single day until her ears became sore from its constant repetition. But she never tired of it completely, because she too, believed it to be an ambition they would never compromise on.
“Mia, you must continue to hone your skills. Your grandfather failed to fulfill our greatest desire. I, myself, am endeavoring in every possible way to bring it about, but who knows what the future will bring. Therefore, this task might in turn fall to you.”
“Yes, Father,” she nodded dutifully.
Her father was a great man, yet their ambition was still far beyond their grasp. In order to someday realize it, she would continue honing her skills, so that one day she might put them to use.
“There will always be organizations that seek to thwart our ambition. So it was in your grandfather’s generation, as it is in mine. Most assuredly, so it will be in your generation as well. However, we cannot afford to lose. No matter how bitter the battle, you must not give in. Our techniques are impeccable. Our skills unmatched! With our superior abilities, someday soon, we will crush our adversaries and grab hold of our one true desire!”
“Yes, Father.”
That’s right, we have enemies, Mia thought to herself. Enemies who would see our goals thwarted no matter the personal cost to them. There is no room for compromise! So long as we strive to realize our ambition, they will hunt for ways to bar our path. Such is the tradition of Good and Evil, continuing from time immemorial.
“Now, Mia, say out loud what our dearest wish is, and feel the sound of it reverberate in your very soul! What is it that we call our greatest desire?”
Mia hastily straightened and proudly recited, “Our goal is world domination! Our ambition is to rule the world!”
She proclaimed to the world in a voice without the tiniest hint of doubt. The father, seeing his daughter’s eyes shining with strong resolve, nodded, clearly satisfied.
“That is correct! Well said, Mia. Now, let us be off, my dearest daughter! Next stop is but another step in the pursuit of our goal, world domination!”
Her father spectacularly flung his cape outwards and took a large step in the direction of world conquest…
***
PLEASANT rays of morning sunlight filtered into the bedroom doused with stillness. Mia stood in front of her dresser, fishing a black cape from out of its depths. It rustled as she wrapped its fabric around her shoulders and fastened it around her neck with a cord, which she tied in a cute bow. She took the sides of the cape in both hands, spreading it behind her back, and looked in the mirror.
“It’s a bit too big… However, I cannot very well just adjust the hem.”
She had never seen a hemmed-up cape, and besides, that would look lame. The length might be a little too long for her, but she couldn’t just go without her cape. So, with the bottom of it dragging behind her on the floor, Mia opened the sliding screen with a dull thud.
By the time she passed the living room and arrived at the kitchen counter, the lengthy hem was white with dust. Mia grabbed it and started dusting it off.
“Gack!”
Coughing at the rising dust, she looked towards the counter. A single framed picture decorated its surface. Mia’s father stared at her from the frame. The man she looked up to and admired so much was no longer with her. She stood up straight, gazing at the picture.
“Dearest Father, I shall now be leaving to do battle. Please, watch over me.”
She bowed to the picture before taking hold of her wand, which she always left leaning against the kitchen counter. Zealously tossing her cape back, she took off for the entrance with a confident stride.
“Here I go, to achieve my goal! My ambition is world domination. I shall have everything within my grasp!”
She vigorously shoved the door open, the cape dragging in her wake. Bam! The door noisily slammed shut behind her as she exited her apartment.
The sparrows were chirping, exchanging their morning greetings. Just as she stepped out, Mia ran into one of her neighbors.
“Why if it isn’t Miss Oonari! Good morning! It’s still a school holiday, why are you up so early?”
“Good morning, Mrs. Ozawa! I need to run an important errand today. No time for sleep when there are goals to achieve!”
“Oh, is that so? What’s up with your cape? It’s too big for you! Today’s not Halloween, is it?”
“It’s, uh… Uh… U-Uniform, that’s right! It’s my uniform!”
“Uniform, you say? Oh, I see, it’s for a play, right? Of course, there must be a drama club at your high school!”
While there indeed was a drama club at her school, Mia, who by no means was a member, was becoming a bit flustered. However, Mrs. Ozawa, oblivious to her plight, went on to show Mia the basket she was holding, smiling from ear to ear.
“More importantly, look what I have here! Dried persimmons! Just got them from a neighbor! Here’s some for you too, Miss Oonari!”
Mrs. Ozawa handed her a bag containing some dried persimmons, which Mia meekly accepted.
“Thank you very much! I feel bad for always relying on you…”
“Don’t you worry about it! You’re living alone, that has to be difficult. If you ever need something, you tell me, all right, sweetie?” Mrs. Ozawa replied kindly, before returning to her apartment.
Mia lived in a rented apartment with two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room and a kitchen. It was an apartment complex, so she ran into her neighbors quite often.
Mia wiped the beads of sweat that had appeared on her forehead with her arm. “Phew, it seems I somehow managed to talk my way out of this. She who’s to become the Supreme Ruler of Evil must tread carefully!”
The fact that Mia was the Supreme Ruler of Evil and plotting world domination was her biggest secret—she had to keep it hidden no matter what. Should someone discover her true identity, she would have to make them disappear as soon as possible. That’s what Father had said. The problem was, Mia hadn’t learned the technique for doing that yet. That meant if anyone found out who she truly was, she would be in big trouble…because she wouldn’t know how to erase them.
“Well, anyway, today I managed to keep Mrs. Ozawa from catching on to who I am. I just have to pull myself together and push onwards!”
With bottom of her cape trailing after her, Mia descended the stairs of the apartment complex. After walking down a road in her residential district for a while, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks.
“Hey, now that I think of it, what exactly do I have to do to take over the world?”
She crossed her arms as she pondered this crucial question. Father had told her to conquer the world, but she had never thought to ask him how she should go about achieving it.
While she was puzzling over this, a man walking his dog greeted her in passing. “Good morning!”
“Good morning!” Mia answered back automatically…then snapped out of her reverie. “For now, I’ll just get out of here. Can’t have my evil lair discovered after all!”
Mia, who was plotting world domination, had enemies who would get in her way. There was no telling when they might find her. So, after confirming there were no people nearby, she waved her wand.
“Fly in the skies!”
As soon as she pronounced those words with all her might, Mia’s legs lifted off the ground and her body softly floated skywards. Soaring up until she had reached an altitude where she would be unrecognizable to any passersby happening to look up, she stopped abruptly. Then she crossed her arms, her wand in one hand.
“Hmm. There is no ‘world domination’ without ‘world’, but to suddenly begin at that scale is crazy. Great undertakings like this are best started small!”
So she flew on, looking carefully with her magically enhanced vision for anything in the town that could act as a springboard towards world domination.
Mia was a sorceress. It would be meaningless to ask how she became one: she was simply born a sorceress. Just like her father and grandfather were born sorcerers before her, and their parents and grandparents before them—they had always been sorcerers. Throughout the generations, the sorcerers of her lineage strove to master magical techniques to realize their ambition of world domination, working tirelessly to fulfill their greatest desire. All of them, without exception, failed and laid down their lives in pursuit of it.
“Domination means controlling the country or its people… So, that means the world will eventually belong to me.”
She nodded in agreement with herself. Wow, she was good at this!
“And that means that this town, too, will be under my control and belong to me, which leaves me with just one thing to do!”
A sparkle lit up in Mia’s eyes. Something had dawned on her; she triumphantly clenched her fist.
“I will be overseeing this town! As the first step towards world domination, I’ll make it into my ideal town!”
First the town, then the country, and then the world! She could just slowly broaden the scope of the territory she oversaw. If she kept at it, someday she’d conquer the world! Happy with having finally set a concrete goal, Mia set about observing the town from above.
“Huh? What is that?”
There was a large river that flowed through the town. Once the fishing season started in early summer, its banks came alive with fishermen casting their hooks for sweetfish, and people convening to have barbecues. It was a famous gathering spot in town.
However, it was still just the very beginning of spring. The sweetfish wouldn’t bite, and it was way too cold to be enjoying a barbecue. Despite that, perhaps because today was a holiday, there were several boys and girls making a racket, dancing and singing merrily to the music they had been loudly blasting from their speakers all morning. Not only that, they had littered the vicinity with leftovers and packaging from their food and drinks.
“How dare they?! This is a very grave matter. I will not allow them to further defile the beautiful sights under my protection!”
Rushing forward and cutting through the air with a whoosh, Mia landed on top of a sunshade. The boys and girls who had been living it up just until a moment ago were astonished at the sight of a girl suddenly descending from the sky.
“Hey, you lot! Explain yourselves right now!” Mia shouted at the gobsmacked group from atop the sunshade.
“Huh?” came the oh-so-intelligent reaction from one of the boys in the group.
“Putting on music so loud this early in the day; didn’t you stop to think about how it would bother the people living around here? And throwing your garbage away wherever you please, aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? I shall not tolerate such travesty in a public area!”
“Whatever… So, did you, like, drop from the sky or something?”
“Why yes, for I am an evil sorceress, and that’s what we do!”
Tossing her cape back crisply, she struck the signature pose she had practiced for nights on end. Oh, it was a daunting pose fit for a Supreme Ruler of Evil all right, with her arms stretched out over her head for maximum intimidation.
“What’s up with this girl? She’s saying she’s an evil sorceress, so is she, like, saying she’s bad?” one of the girls asked, putting a painted fingernail to her chin.
“Maybe she’s not all bad—it’s just her brain that’s gone bad…”
“Ah, that kind of bad, yeah…”
“Wait, didn’t she come out of the sky?! Was she flying?”
“Argh, will you listen to me for a moment!” Mia pointed accusingly at the group merrily discussing her without reserve. They paused. “Good, and now you will clean up this mess you’ve made. Be sure to put all the garbage into garbage bags. And don’t forget to sort it either!”
The boys and girls seemed to grow irritated with Mia trying to boss them around.
“Kinda annoying, ain’t she?”
“Not only is she stupid, she’s grating on my nerves too!”
“We’re comin’ back from karaoke night and we’re feelin’ dope! We’ll go home after we sing it out, ‘kay, missy?”
“Listen up you lot,” Mia demanded, “if you won’t obey me, I’ll put you on my list of subjects to purge! You can’t hold me responsible for any harm that comes your way then!” When she menacingly tapped her wand on her palm, the group burst into laughter.
“What is she doing? Is this cosplay?”
“She’s wearing a cape or something; I think she’s just cuckoo.”
Mia was offended. “Wha-?! I’m the Supreme Ruler of Evil, I’ll have you know! Which means I won’t hesitate to cause you bodily harm if I must in order to fulfill my ambitions!” Mia exclaimed loudly, only to be guffawed at.
“Get this, she’s the Supreme Ruler of Eeeeeevil! Bwahaha!”
“It’s so cold outside, what could’ve possibly caused her brain to fry like that?”
“Why you! …I’ll sacrifice you plebeians upon the cornerstone of my glory! …Rage, o winter sea!”
She poured her will into the words and twirled her wand. Suddenly, something resembling thick white mist softly enveloped the group ridiculing her, accompanied by a loud rumbling. When the mist dissolved, the boys and girls were soaking wet—then an ice-cold wind blew vigorously, biting them and chilling them further.
“C-C-C-Cold! I’m s-s-so c-c-cold!”
“What the heck is this? F-F-Freezing!”
Mia crossed her arms, coolly regarding the shivering bunch from atop the sunshade. “I trust that you are now duly aware of the extent of my powers, muhahaha!”
By the way, ‘muhahaha’ was a traditional manner of laughing, passed down in the Oonari family since ancient times. Mia had learned it from her father as he learned it from his.
“You witch! You are so gonna regret this!”
“I’m c-cold! Go and turn on the heat in the car, quick!”
“I want a nice hot bath!”
Shaking and shivering, the boys and girls who’d partied too hard on the riverbank hightailed it out of there.
“Pft, this was too easy!” Mia smirked with profound satisfaction. Smirking was, again, something Supreme Rulers of Evil did. She’d made sure to practice her evil smirk as well.
After standing on the sunshade for a while, basking in her glory, Mia abruptly realized something—they hadn’t taken their trash with them.
“Curses. Hey! If you are going to flee, why don’t you first clean up after yourselves and then run away, huh?!” she reflexively screamed aloud, but the group she was addressing had already fled the scene by car.
Mia sighed heavily. “…Well, I guess that leaves me to deal with this mess. Let this become yet another stone added to the foundation of my world domination scheme.”
She briskly jumped down from the sunshade and turned off the speakers first. Then she armed herself with the convenience store bags the group had left lying around and began collecting the scattered trash.
“Argh, I can’t sort the garbage here! I guess I’ll have to take it home with me to sort…” Mia was muttering under her breath while putting trash into the bags when she heard someone’s voice from behind.
“Huh, so you’re the new Supreme Ruler of Evil, eh?”
Mia, suddenly called by her alias, whipped around. “Who are you?!” she barked towards the source of the voice, which turned out to be a young man grinning down at her.
“Who, me? I’m a Champion of Justice. And you are the Supreme Ruler of Evil, right?”
“Indeed I am! …Wait a minute, did you just say ‘a Champion of Justice’?!” Mia quickly hurled the bag of trash to the side and darted away, trying to put some distance between her and the man. Then she took a shaky breath. “Who on Earth are you?!” she pointed an accusing finger at him.
The man simply stood there calmly, with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. “I just told you that I’m a Champion of Justice, duh. Were you even listening?”
“Wrong! In a situation like this, you should be saying something like, ‘I cannot let such an evil deed go unpunished!’”
“Huh… But you were just picking up garbage, yeah? It just didn’t look all that evil to me, ya know.”
“Your timing is off! I was inflicting harm upon the ordinary citizens to achieve my ambition just mere minutes ago. If you had been here at that time, you would have seen a solid evil deed!”
“Whoops, sorry, my bad, had to drop by the convenience store real quick.”
Mia was thoroughly exasperated by his lackadaisical attitude.
This was all wrong. Her enemy, the ‘Champion of Justice’, was supposed to be different.
“Hey, scoundrel, do you have any passion for your job at all? You’re supposed to be a Champion of Justice here!”
“Uh, well, yeah, I guess… So, you really are the Supreme Ruler of Evil?”
“Mwahahaha, I’m glad you asked!” Mia pushed her cape behind her with a sharp flick of her wrist.
Try as she did with all her might, the hem of her too-long cape stayed glued to the ground. It looked a bit lame, but she refused to let that get to her.
“I am the Supreme Ruler of the evil organization known as Gealach, the Sorceress of Darkness, Oonari Mia!” Mia introduced herself loud and proud, not forgetting to take her signature pose, naturally.
The man, seemingly impressed, rewarded her performance with light applause. “Whoa, I can see you’ve practiced a lot, very impressive! But hey, I’ve heard some things about Supreme Rulers of Evil, and apparently they usually go by some sort of codename or alias. Is Oonari Mia your real name by any chance?”
“Drat! Damnation!” She actually had thought up a codename for herself, but she had ended up blurting out her real name on the spur of the moment. “No, no, I made a mistake! I do have a codename! Err… Oh, right! It’s ‘Draiocht’!”
“Huh, I see. Well, nice meeting you, Mia!”
“Don’t you dare call me Mia! You have to properly address me as ‘Draiocht’!” She shouted at the top of her lungs, and promptly ran out of breath.
Ever since she had met the man, she’d been getting worked up, and it had finally worn her down. World domination was no piece of cake.
“Run out of steam, have ya? Well, no wonder you’re tired after yelling that much! I’ve got coffee if you want some?”
“As if I would accept charity from my enemy! How about you introduce yourself instead?”
“Well, while I’m dying to do just that, I kinda have to wait for the others before I do.”
At the man’s words, Mia was hit by a sudden terrible realization. That’s right, a ‘Champion of Justice’ was never alone. According to her father, Champions of Justice tended to flock together and form groups. Like turtles…or maybe worms—yes just like worms do when they gather together on the sidewalks after it rains. She didn’t know how many of them there were, but—
As she was remembering her father’s words, a group of people walked up from behind to join her enemy.
“So sorry, Ren! We stopped by this cell phone shop for a bit…”
“Ugh, I really wish they would cut it out with having us work on holidays.”
“Whoa, look, there really is a girl matching the description! Hey, why didn’t you contact us sooner?”
“Sorry. I was off duty, so I was sleeping.”
Three men, one woman. If she counted the man she was talking to, that made for four men, one woman—five people in total.
Just as Mia braced her wand, ready for battle, one of the men who had appeared took a step in front, blocking her way.
“I haven’t personally seen your evil deeds to be honest, but let’s say that you were indeed up to no good here. Anyway, I can’t let you go unpunished. We are the Champions of Justice, Crow Rangers! Red Ranger, reporting for duty!”
Mia involuntarily let out a small “oh” of admiration towards the man introducing himself as the Red Ranger. This was it—this was the kind of passion she was looking for!
However, no one else appeared to even try to match Red’s zeal. The rest of the members went on with their introductions in a very mundane manner.
“Ugh, would you please stop saying ‘Crow Rangers’? Oh, I’m Pink, by the way. But being called Pink at this age is really embarrassing, so call me Aya, okay?”
“Nice to meet you! I’m Yellow. See this yellow plate I have on my jacket? If you’re ever confused, you can tell us apart by looking at the plates. I’d like it if you called me Shou.”
“What color was I again? …Oh right, I’m Blue! You can call me Subaru.”
Mia was flustered by this influx of introductions. “W-Wait a minute! It’s too sudden! So it was, uh, Red, Aya, Shou, and Subaru?”
“Bingo. By the way, Red’s name is Misaki. And I’m Ren. My plate’s green, see?” The man who had called out to her first grinned broadly, walking up to her to show her the plate.
“I see, just like Shou said, I can identify which color you are just by looking at your plates.” Mia inadvertently moved closer to Ren, intently studying his plate. “Ah, so ‘Crow Rangers’ is actually written on your plates.”
“Yep. That’s something our Chief came up with. He says he likes the youthful enthusiasm it exudes. Sucks for us though,” Ren explained.
“His naming sense is just the worst,” Aya grimaced in agreement.
“Hey! That’s enough fooling around! We’ve got a job to do here. We’ll be receiving a bonus for working on a holiday, so get to it!” Misaki, the proud owner of the red plate, scolded his colleagues.
However, the four others remained thoroughly uninterested, which made Mia feel bad for Misaki. Ren leisurely stroked his chin, muttering, “And what do you want me to do anyway?” Then he looked up, “Oh, I almost forgot! She said her name’s Mia Oonari!”
“Quit calling me Mia! It’s ‘Draiocht’ for you! And don’t go introducing me without my permission!” Mia bristled instantly, but Ren was completely unaffected and casually shrugged his shoulders.
“Like it matters. So, what are we gonna do? Wanna fight?”
“Er, I’m fine with fighting, but can you wait a bit?”
Normally, as the Supreme Ruler of Evil, she should’ve been jumping at the chance to fight, but Mia still had unfinished business. Ren stared at her, clearly puzzled, so she pointed at the garbage bag she had thrown to the side earlier.
“Those insolent pests I had to deal with bolted before picking up their trash, so could we please wait until after I am done cleaning up?”
“I don’t mind. What happened here exactly?” Shou, the young man with the yellow plate, asked, so Mia decided to explain what had transpired thus far.
“There were some people making a racket here, blasting music from their speakers at full volume early in the morning. They were also scattering their litter about. This irritated me so much that I taught them a lesson, but they ran away without cleaning up after themselves.”
“Ah, that sounds troublesome. So you gave them an earful, huh,” Shou summarized.
“I don’t ‘give an earful’. I simply cannot let slide behavior that ruins the natural beauty of or endangers the peaceful life of the residents of this territory I am in charge of. That is why I sacrificed them upon the cornerstone of my glory!”
“Ah, I see! How noble of you, Mia!” Aya chimed in, smiling, and patted Mia on the head.
“Hey, stop touching me!” Mia furiously shook her head free from Aya’s hand, then turned and tried to lift the huge speakers, but they were so large that she couldn’t get them to budge.
Noticing her struggle, Ren approached her. “Want some help?”
“That will not be necessary! To me, this is supposed to be a springboard towards world domination. I cannot accept help from a Champion of Justice.”
“What are you gonna do then? No matter how you look at it, they’re way too big and heavy for you to lift.”
Indeed, the speakers were of considerable size, about Mia’s height. Yet, Mia proceeded to laugh evilly with her hands on her hips before climbing atop the speakers. “Hehehe! You’re naïve to think a trifle like this would hold me back, the Great Dark Sorceress, Mia Oonari!”
“You just keep adding to your title, huh? Also, you just used your real name again.”
“Gahh! I meant ‘Draiocht’!”
“I’m already used to calling you Mia. It’s easier to say, too. Mia-mia!”
“Don’t call me Mia-mia! Anyway, all of you can sit back, relax, and watch as I come closer to enforcing my dictatorship!” She waved her wand from her position atop the speakers, and chanted her spell, pouring intent into her words. “Fly with me into the skies!”
The moment the words left her lips, a gust of wind softly blew by. Mia, the speakers, and also Ren, who was standing right next to her, all floated into the air.
“Wh-Whoa!” he exclaimed.
“Wowie! Ren’s levitating!” Shou cheered, evidently amused by the sight of Ren struggling to keep his balance.
“This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this. So this is the ‘magic’ she was talking about,” Subaru whispered with awe.
“When I heard about it from our Chief, I thought it was just the ramblings of a crazy old man, but it was true, huh?” Aya stared on in wonder.
“Do you guys have any sense of urgency at all?! Let’s fight it out and get this over with already!” Misaki raged alone. No one on his team listened to him.
However, Mia flew up to him, looking embarrassed. “Do you think if I gathered their belongings and left them together around here somewhere, the police would treat it as lost property?”
“…Yeah, you do that. We’re police officers too. We’ll let the Traffic Division know about it on your behalf, so get moving already!”
A surprised “oh” escaped Mia’s lips at Misaki’s annoyed instructions. “So you are police officers! It certainly makes sense for Champions of Justice, now that I think about it. All right, understood!”
Mia lowered the speakers on a quiet spot by the riverbank and went back for the sunshade. She raised her wand, ready to cast the spell. “Fly with me in—wait, why are you following me?”
Ren, who Mia had just dropped off with the speaker, along with three other rangers, notably missing Misaki, were standing right behind Mia.
“Uh, well, you have to try everything at least once, you know!”
“Yeah, yeah!”
“I want to try flying too!”
“And I want an encore!”
“Hey, my magic is not your toy!” Mia wildly flailed her arms, fuming, at which Ren tried soothing her with a ‘there, there’.
“Hey, if you don’t hurry up, Misaki will get tired of waiting and leave. You okay with that?”
“Urgh.”
Letting an enemy escape would be a disgrace to her title as Supreme Ruler of Evil. Mia grudgingly twirled her wand.
“Fly with me into the skies!” she recited, and immediately the sunshade and the four people along with it were lifted up and suspended in midair.
Each person had a different reaction: one made swimming motions, another dangled their feet in the air, but everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.
“Say, Mia, how do you make this magic of yours work? You said ‘Fly with me something something’, so it’s, like, whenever you say this phrase, you can fly at will?” Shou inquired excitedly, his eyes sparkling with fascination. Mia shook her head no.
“There is no fixed phrase for it. I imagine the thing I wish to accomplish and hold this image in my head. Then, by pronouncing the words that come to me at that moment, I grant power to the magic.”
“I see, so concentrating while forming the words is necessary,” Subaru nodded sagely, hovering in midair with his arms and legs crossed.
“So you can basically do anything, Mia?” Aya joined in the questioning.
Mia answered in a detailed manner, “If I can give the intent a proper form in my mind, technically I should be able to do anything. In essence, however, I can only use the images I learned from my father… With some time, I could give form to ideas with my own power, though.”
Mia reached the place where she had left the speakers and safely landed the four people and the sunshade nearby. Then she waved her wand again. “Disassemble!”
The moment she finished speaking, the sunshade’s frame began to unravel piece by piece, then stacked up in a neat pile by itself. The four looking on from behind clapped, amazed by the sight.
“Wow, that magic is really neat! Wish I could use it too,” Ren whispered enviously, stroking his chin.
“Hehehe, unfortunately for you, it’s impossible for commoners such as yourselves. This technique is something only us sorcerers can use. It has to run in your blood!” Mia sneered, firmly shoving her cape aside to flash a daunting pose.
“Ah, so it’s something akin to heredity, huh.” Aya nodded in understanding.
“Well now, playtime is hereby over!” Mia gave her wand a whirl, softly floated up, flew through the air, and landed a small distance away from the five rangers.
“My apologies for the wait! Now let me drop you straight into the cauldron of Hell!”
“Hey, do you actually have to wave your wand to do magic?” Ren interrupted.
Mia’s shoulders slumped at his out of place question. “Argh, enough about my magic already! Waving it is the way my father taught me how to do magic!”
“He was a person with old-fashioned, questionable tastes, eh?” Aya quietly mumbled.
That was when Misaki took a swift step forward. “Ugh, I’m ending this, now. Hey, Mia, I can’t leave someone defying common sense and plotting world domination to boot like you wandering around! I’m gonna arrest you and end this ridiculous charade!”
Misaki pulled something resembling a police baton out of his bag and charged at Mia without waiting for her response. Mia laughed indomitably and parried the baton with her wand. They clashed with a resounding clang.
Mia swiftly began to cast a spell, “O earth, collapse!”
Following her words, the ground supporting Misaki’s feet dully throbbed, and a hole opened up underneath him.
“Wh-Whoa?!” Misaki yelped as he lost his balance, falling on his backside. However, he immediately got back on his feet and thrust the baton in Mia’s gut.
“I hate doing this to a girl, but…” As Misaki pushed a button on his baton, Mia felt a jolt of electricity rush through her body.
“Aiee!” She hastily whirled her wand, flying through the air to put some distance between herself and Misaki. Mia’s body still tingled unpleasantly, and her hair stood slightly on end from the static electricity.
“Humph, to think you would resort to such petty tricks!”
“Wow, so the stories really are true. A normal person would collapse after taking a hit from a stun gun!”
“Mwahaha! Battles are unavoidable for those who aim to conquer the world! With a defensive barrier, an attack like that is nothing to worry about.”
“That girl’s trouble… Hey, wait a sec! Come on you guys, help me out here!”
The other four rangers were dawdling behind him. None of them showed even a grain of inclination for joining the fray. Subaru was at least observing the fight, his arms crossed; Shou, on the other hand, was playing a game on his smart phone. Aya, for some reason, was cheering the enemy on with, “Go, Mia!”, while Ren was smoking a cigarette he’d procured from his convenience store bag.
“You people… You know what, I’m telling the boss on you!” Misaki exhaled exasperatedly.
Ren, apparently troubled by the prospect of that happening, took one step forward, the cigarette still hanging from his lips.
“Well, I guess I gotta do it then… Getting a pay cut would be a pain, so I’ll just get this sorted real quick.”
Fixing his eyes on Mia, who tightly gripped her wand in anticipation, Ren handed his cigarette to Misaki.
“Hey, put it out first, would you?”
“Meh, forgot my pocket ashtray. Hold on to it for me, ‘kay?”
Having said that, he started towards Mia at a leisurely pace. Mia was outraged by how blatantly he underestimated her.
“Let’s see how you like it when I drench you in ice-cold water, you craven! With the ice—huh?”
As Mia was casting her spell, Ren suddenly broke into a sprint at incredible speed. Startled by Ren appearing right before her in a blink of an eye, Mia lost her ability to speak. Meanwhile, Ren cupped her face with his hands, touching his lips to hers.
“…?!”
Mia’s mind went completely blank with the sensation of having her lips sealed by a deep kiss. Hastily, she started hitting him on the back and pushing him away, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Mm! Mmph!”
She was suffocating. Gradually, strength seeped away from her struggling limbs. At last, when her head started spinning, he let her go.
“There ya go, all done!”
“H-Huh?” Mia, whose lips had finally been released, dazedly looked up at Ren. She realized too late that she couldn’t move her wrists. “Wha-?! H-Handcuffs?! When did you-?!”
“While you were enjoying my smooch. Was real easy too!”
“How vile!” With her hands handcuffed behind her back, Mia leaped backwards to get away from Ren.
“And you call yourself a Champion of Justice?! While committing such…such acts of barbarity, you dimwit!”
“But hey, if you don’t concentrate while pronouncing the words of a spell, you can’t cast your spells, right? So, I thought that if I sealed your lips you’d probably lose your focus, see?”
“T-To use such licentious methods is deplorable!” Mia’s face grew red and her shoulders trembled. She was so mortified that tears welled up in her eyes.
Noticing the state she was in, Shou clapped his hands. “Wait a second, Mia, was that your first kiss?”
“Oh my.” Aya’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Of course it was, you fool! I have never done anything like this! When would I have had the chance to!”
“Oops, sorry for that!” Ren apologized, insincerely.
Rattling her handcuffs angrily, Mia fumed, “I don’t care for your halfhearted apologies! Take responsibility for your actions, you bonehead!”
“What responsibility? Do I need to marry you now or something?”
“M-M-Marry?! Who said anything about that? …Dance, o blade of wind!”
This time, Mia succeeded in imbuing the words with her will. As she spoke them, the handcuffs were cut through easily as if they had been made of paper, and they clattered to the ground in pieces.
“Huh, so you can do this, too. A miscalculation on my part.”
“Do not underestimate me. You cannot hope to restrain me with such flimsy aluminum handcuffs!”
“Apparently not. How ‘bout I put a sturdier collar on you next time, hm?” Ren smirked.
That smirk was completely unlike the smirk Mia had spent years to perfect; it was a wicked expression unfit to appear on a Champion of Justice.
“C-C-C-Consider this your lucky day; I’m letting you off the hook! But I’ll get you next time, you’ll see!” Mia threw as a parting remark, repeated by many villains over the ages that found themselves in a certain set of circumstances when they were confronted with Champions of Justice. She then picked up the garbage bag before soaring up into the sky with her magic.
“You gonna run away?” Ren grinned up at her.
“Call it a strategic retreat, will you?! I have to go and rethink my tactics!”
“That so? Well, I’m looking forward to the next time we meet! Also, not that I care, but you’re flashing your panties.”
“Aiee! Stop looking!” Mia hastily tried to hold her skirt down.
“White, huh… Frilly, too! And with a lace ribbon, how cute!” Shou observed.
“Wearing such underwear is one of the privileges of being a young girl, don’t you think?” Aya chimed in.
Their underwear discussion made Mia’s shoulders shake again.
“…Mia,” Subaru quietly called out to the girl. He had mostly stayed silent throughout the encounter and hadn’t taunted her, so she looked down at him tolerantly. He straightened his previously folded arms and met her eyes. “You look small and frail for your age. Don’t neglect eating nutritious foods during lunch!”
“I-I don’t need your advice!” Mia shouted before she took off flying. The five heroes left behind watched her leave from the riverbank.
***
“Ahh, that was fun! At first, I hated this job, but if Mia’s gonna be our opponent it might turn out to be enjoyable after all!” Shou exclaimed with a smile.
“Yeah, I thought that in our day and age ‘Champions of Justice’ should be relegated to jokes or corny action TV shows, but I agree with Shou. Mia’s so cute!” Aya agreed.
“She’s all alone, isn’t she? I heard she has no family. I wonder if she’s eating properly…” Subaru was seriously worrying about her. He was very much the older brother figure.
“Seriously, you guys? I just want to get this job done and over with and return to my normal duties. The previous Supreme Ruler of Evil is finally dead and gone, and now there’s suddenly a successor appearing out of nowhere!” Misaki declared irritably. He was the only one wholeheartedly dedicated to ending the Champions of Justice’s job.
“But hey, Ren, wasn’t kissing her taking it a step too far?” Aya charged, “You could’ve covered her mouth with your hand or something, there had to be some other way to disrupt her words rather than kissing!”
“Yeah! Mia clearly looked completely inexperienced in that department,” Shou added, following her lead.
The person in question, meanwhile, relit his cigarette and gave a small shrug. “I just felt like doing it. Besides, I’ve sorta taken a liking to her, and if I take a liking to something, I go for it!”
“But you can’t. Don’t toy with her; you know she’s a minor,” chided Aya, but Ren just smirked, looking up into the sky.
“Pft. Then, rather than toying, I’ll just go for her—for real.”
“So, your intentions are honorable?” Subaru asked for further clarification. He appeared to have taken the role of Mia’s big brother upon himself.
“Ouch. I’m actually the type who’ll take proper care of the one I’ve set my sights on, ya know?”
“…All right then.”
“Yeah! Why don’t you seduce Mia over to our side and make her give up on world domination? Then the world will be at peace, and we’ll be able to return to our regular duties!” Aya proposed.
Shou clapped enthusiastically. “Yeah, it’s a brilliant plan!”
“Well, if you could pull it off, I’d sure be happy,” Misaki reluctantly approved, “I’d really like to return to my normal duties as soon as I can. So, you guys, from now on, pull it together and do your job, okay?”
His words only managed an unenthusiastic “yes sir” out of the others, except for Subaru, who silently nodded.
“’Seduce her over to our side’, huh? Ain’t that gonna be fun!” Ren snickered to himself as he watched Misaki report the speakers and sunshade as lost property.
***
MEANWHILE, Mia was flying through the sky, grumbling to herself, “Damnation! I have no clue what happened, but I ended up having to fle—No, no, I mean, make a strategic retreat!”
It was decidedly not a withdrawal. She would just carefully rethink her tactics before returning to destroy the insolent rangers.
“Thinking about tactics… How about a clever ploy? Like a trap… Yes, a pitfall, perfect!” A light bulb went off in Mia’s head. “They said they were with the police. Ha! Ha! Ha! So thoughtless of them to divulge their workplace to me like that! I’ll keep watch on the nearby police station, and when I spot them, I will drop them straight into the pits of Hell!”
All that was left was to put her words into action. Mia dove through the air towards the police station at top speed until she saw a big road come into view beneath her. It had four lanes, with cars incessantly speeding along them. As she was searching for a place to land without catching anyone’s eye, she noticed a child on the sidewalk.
“So many cars around here… Is he alone?”
The child stopped before the pedestrian crossing, and when the traffic light turned green, he slowly started crossing the road.
“Hm, he follows the traffic light signals! What a good little future workforce member!”
As she was thus nodding to herself in midair, watching the child, the traffic light began to blink, then turned red. The child, who was still in the middle of the road, froze, distraught. When an impatient driver honked at him, he glanced around nervously, seeking help.
“Humph!”
The driver now angrily stuck his head out of the car window. As soon as Mia saw him do that, she swooped down, readying for a sharp drop.
“Start moving, you little brat!” The man yelled at the boy, slamming the car horn repeatedly.
“Y-Yes, sorry, mister.” The boy hurried to continue along, but the cars in the other lanes had started moving already, zooming past him at high speed.
However, the driver was enraged; he continued slamming on his car horn, shouting at the top of his lungs. The child looked like he could burst into tears at any moment.
“Stop upsetting my future workforce member!”
Mia aimed a flying kick at the head of the man leaning out of the driver’s seat. Wham! From there, she smoothly transitioned into a somersault, landing with a solid thump on the roof of his car. After a moment’s delay, her cape fluttered down, following its owner, and draped over the car’s windshield like a tablecloth, so that it covered it completely.
“Now you listen to me! All the people in this town are under my dominion. The children are the future drones of my workforce. Someday, they will become the limbs that will carry this town forth to greatness. I will not tolerate such foolish and vicious behavior towards my precious human resources!”
“Ouch… Huh, wha-? Who the hell are you? Where the hell did you appear from?!”
“Where I appeared from matters not! See how the cars around you show no signs of stopping, even though a terrified child stands petrified in the middle of the road? This is precisely what people call ‘moral degeneration’! It’s a modern-day plague! My ideal town has no need for such immoral behavior! And now, I shall put things right!”
The man leaned farther out of the window with a threatening expression and looked up at Mia standing on the roof of the car. “Whatever, just get down from my ca—” In doing so, he had inadvertently peeped right up her skirt. “…Oh…! G-Get down already!” He had almost fallen to the innocent charms of the delicate white lace, but he quickly shook his head and continued harping at Mia.
“Pft, I don’t mind getting down, but only once I have finished what I’m here for. No one shall escape unscathed! …O verdant green, turn into shackles!”
As Mia waved her wand, thin tendrils shot up from underneath the asphalt one after another and wrapped themselves tightly around the oncoming cars.
“Whoa, what in the…?”
“The car won’t move! I-It’s caught in a vine?”
Soon, the area was in an uproar, quickly becoming filled with stuck cars, stalled in the massive green vines slithering about all over the road.
Mia hopped down from the roof of the car and took the child’s hand.
“Come, little one.”
“Ah, er… Okay.” The child nodded. Mia grinned back at him then began confidently walking across the crosswalk.
When they finally reached the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road, the boy looked up at Mia with an awestruck expression on his face, the sparkle in his eyes growing brighter with each passing second.
“Miss, you were super cool! It’s like you can use magic!”
“Wha-?! How did you know?”
That a mere child could figure out her true identity! Mia’s face rapidly drained of color. Her father’s voice rang in her ears, “If someone discovers your true identity, you have to make them disappear!”
“Curses! I don’t know how to make people disappear! Do I remove them like pencil markings with an eraser?”
She had never imagined anything like this, and thus couldn’t conjure up a coherent image to use as a base for her magic. However, the words of her father were absolute. Deciding to improvise, Mia readied her wand for spellcasting.
“Muhahaha! I commend you for being able to figure out my true identity! However, I cannot let you walk away with this knowledge! V-Vanish!”
Weaving a spell based off a vague image, she decisively twirled her wand. The next moment, the hat the child was wearing disappeared into thin air. And then it fell right on top of Mia’s head with a plop.
“……”
“……”
After a few seconds of awkward silence, the child excitedly clenched his fists, gazing at her in sheer amazement. Mia, meanwhile, was clutching her head in her hands.
“Oh, wow! A real sorceress!”
“N-No, it’s different! The image was different!”
“Hey, you! What are you going to do about this mess?”
While Mia and the boy had been chattering, preoccupied, the drivers had crept up on them from behind, surrounding them. Mia, however, only deigned to grant them a perfunctory stare, and folded her arms, snorting derisively. “I am going to do exactly nothing. I did you all a favor by straightening you out. Surely, you do not mean to try and tell me you hadn’t seen the child, because I will have none of that.”
“Huh? He wasn’t in the lane I was driving in! But whatever, just do something already!”
The man’s words rubbed Mia the wrong way. She forcefully threw back her cape and ascended into the air with her magic, stopping to stand atop one of the streetlights lining the road.
“This is precisely why I’m saying you lack morals! If a child comes into view, stop the car! Do you not feel bad for him, trapped in the center of the road like that? What were you planning to do if he had panicked and ran out in front of your car, huh?” she said all in one breath, then, realizing something, shook her head frantically. “N-No, that came out wrong, allow me to rephrase that. Not ‘feel bad for him’—’fear my wrath, for he exists as a component of the workforce under my rule’.”
“Quit yer yappin’ and do something about these vines, ya hear me?”
“Pft. Those are just your regular old vines. If you pull on them hard enough, they will snap right off. You can do that yourselves. Consider this a part of your remedial training. Because it isn’t like I don’t know how to make them disappear!” she declared and glided into the air.
“Listen closely! This town is under my dominion. As I am in charge here, I shall not tolerate those who defy the principles I lay down! With this, ladies and gentlemen, I will be off, but all of you must keep up the good work! For the glory of Gealach, the evil organization!”
Having announced all of that, Mia finished her parting speech by flashing her signature pose in midair, then off she flew towards the local police station, laughing maniacally to herself all the while.
***
THIS left the crowd of people, the boy, and the cars wrapped in vines, to figure out what had just happened on their own. Someone tried giving a vine a tug. Unexpectedly, it snapped off rather easily.
“Oh hey, these are pretty flimsy. I think if you clear off the ones ‘round the tires, you’ll be good to go.”
“Really? …Oh hey, it’s true!”
The drivers, chattering animatedly among themselves, set to work, ripping the vines off with vigor.
“But hey, don’t you guys think it’s weird? D’ya think she was one of those?” The man whom Mia had greeted with a flying kick flared up again, but no one else wanted to think too much about what had just happened. Rather than dwell on things they couldn’t understand even if they tried, they preferred to get their cars running again.
“Damn, guess I’d better get to pulling those off as well…” he conceded.
The rest of the drivers also slowly started returning to their cars. Only the boy, his hat clutched in his hands, was still staring up at the sky.
“A sorceress… So cool…”
He made up his mind to tell all about what had happened to him as soon as he got back home. But upon telling his story, he only received a curt, “There’s no such thing as sorcerers,” from his mother.
***
“FOR the sake of all that is evil, that was a huge detour I ended up making…”
Mia, having found a back alley near the police station, alighted there and stealthily ran to the corner to get a look at the building.
“Now, when will the blasted rangers arrive?”
Even considering the detour she made, the long distance between the riverbank and the police station meant that Mia was probably ahead of them. She was a quick flier and there were no traffic lights in the air anyway. As she was lying in wait, crouched, Mia’s stomach growled pitifully.
“Ugh, I’m starving.” She whipped out her cell phone and checked the time. It showed high noon. “Maybe I have something on me?”
Mia removed her cape and opened the small backpack she wore underneath. As she was feeling around inside it, her hand stumbled upon the dried persimmons she had received that morning from Mrs. Ozawa.
“Right, I had these! I shall have to thank Mrs. Ozawa later. When I succeed in taking over the world, I will reward her with a medal!”
She opened the small bag containing the persimmons and proceeded to eat them. The condensed sweetness of dried fruit was exquisite, while their chewy texture seemed to make her stomach fill quicker. Dried persimmons proved to be excellent rations!
Mia dug into the persimmons with zest. Just as she was sinking her teeth into the third one, she felt a sudden clap on her shoulder from behind.
“…?!”
The persimmon she’d swallowed whole in surprise got stuck in her throat, and she desperately pounded her chest to dislodge it.
“Mm-mmph!”
“What’s the matter? Something went down the wrong pipe?” The person behind her rubbed her back comfortingly.
“M-Mmph… Phew. I thought I was dead… Wait, who are you?” Mia tried to turn, but the mystery person trapped her by wrapping their arms around her from behind. Then a kiss landed on her ear, ripping an involuntary yelp from her.
“Man, asking me who I am, that’s cold! We’ve just met, did you forget already?”
Upon hearing the familiar voice and seeing the familiar jacket sleeves on the arms wrapped around her, Mia realized who it was with a start. “R-Ren, is that you?!”
“Yep! Short time no see, Mia!”
The man standing behind her was none other than Ren, the Green Crow Ranger she had met earlier at the riverbank.
Though wrapped snugly in his arms, Mia whipped out her wand, ready to fire off a speech worthy of a true evil sorceress.
“Ha-ha-ha! That you would approach me of your own volition so brazenly, how foolish of you! Mark my words, Crow Ranger Ren! This here will be your grave—ah!”
Ren blew a gentle breath into her ear; the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. He kept on pressing a kiss to Mia’s earlobe, until she began to wriggle in his arms, unable to stand the ticklish sensation anymore.
“Hyah! Stop! Eek!”
“Your ears are so sensitive… Oh, and quit calling me ‘Crow Ranger’, seriously. You sound like our Chief.”
“I have no idea who that person is! And a Crow Ranger is a Crow Ranger! You Gree—ahhn!” Chills ran down Mia’s spine at having a warm breath ghost over her ear again.
“If you don’t do what I say, I just might do more!”
“Hya-ah! All right, all right, I won’t call you that so sto—ah-hah!”
As soon as Mia indicated her compliance, he finally stopped kissing her ear. However, his arms stayed wrapped around her.
“Hey, let me go, will you?!”
“I ain’t no fool to release you, knowing you’d attack me with magic if I did. If you try to use some weird magic tricks on me, I’ll kiss your ear again!” He lightly nibbled on her ear, as if in warning. Mia’s shoulders shuddered involuntarily.
“Hehe… You’re so sensitive, Mia. Some villain you are, going all helpless from just a little ear play. So, whatcha doing here?”
Exhausted from having her ears attacked, Mia felt her body grow heavy and limp, so that she blurted out her scheme before she could stop herself. “I was going to make a pitfall trap…”
“A pitfall trap?”
“Yes, to drop you straight into the pits of Hell…”
At his mocking tone, Mia returned to her senses with a jolt. “A-Anyway, release me at once!”
“If you want to break out from your restraints so badly, why don’t you use magic?”
“Huh?” Without thinking, she whipped around inside his arms to face him.
“……”
“……”
The sharp sound of a car zooming past cut through the tense silence between them.
“I-I can’t very well do anything with you so close to me!”
“What are you talking about?”
“See, if I make it rain ice-cold water on you, some of it will fall on me too, and if I summon a gust of wind to blow you away, I’ll end up getting blown away right with you.”
“…Hm, I see.” Ren’s face broke out in a devilish grin.
Mia felt a chill of dread run down her spine. Had she made a terrible slip of the tongue just now?
“So if the target’s right next to you, you’ll also suffer damage from your magic? The effect is wide, not direct. Hm, this is a useful piece of information!”
“Damnation!”
“So your magic’s really not an invincible force. But the magic you cast upon yourself, like when you fly, is different.”
“You can tell?!”
The man before her, with a smirk so wide it threatened to split his face, could not possibly be a Champion of Justice. Between the two of them, he looked far more like a villain.
“You know, you’re kind of a…”
“Kind of a what?”
“Kind of a dummy really, or how do I put it, a bit slow.”
“…!”
This pushed Mia’s anger past the boiling point. Not caring that her target was right there beside her, she waved her wand and started chanting, pouring all her emotions into it. “With the ground—”
“Oh hey, Mia! There you are!” A high-pitched voice broke Mia’s concentration.
When she turned around in search of the voice’s source, she discovered Shou and Aya standing next to the police station.
Mia looked up at Ren and emitted an indignant yelp, “Now they found me too! And it’s all your fault!”
“Well, yeah, but it was all over for you from the moment I spotted you.”
Ren, still hugging Mia from behind, adjusted his hold on her so that he was pinning her under his arm. He stood up and started walking towards the police station.
“L-Let me down!”
“Hey, you guys! I’ve just heard something really interesting!”
Mia’s hips stuck out from under his arm, moreover, her back was to Shou and Aya. She twisted her body, flipping around so that she could properly face them.
“You buffoon, you should treat the Supreme Ruler of Evil with more respect! I outrank you!”
“But I’m a Champion of Justice. Considering you’re a villain, I think I’m treating you exactly as I should.”
“Humph, do not look down on me! O earth, collapse!”
As Mia cast her spell, imbuing the words with her will, a large hole opened up right under Ren’s feet.
Ren almost lost his balance. “Tch! Whoa!” He clicked his tongue as he struggled to keep himself from falling.
Mia used this opportunity to slip away from him, putting a far greater distance between them than she normally would have, and readied her wand. “Hah! Dance, o wind!”
This time, she uttered the words with a resounding voice. Suddenly, a soft breeze started dancing around Ren, Shou, and Aya, growing stronger each second, until it was like they were caught in a raging typhoon anchored to where they stood. Then, it started blowing them away, shoving them towards a wall of the police station. However, Ren and Shou, in one fluid motion, angled their bodies so that they landed with their feet against the wall—Shou even managed to support Aya’s body with one of his arms. When the wind died down, they simply stepped back on the ground.
“Wha-?!” Mia, who had used her wind magic with the intention of sending her opponents crashing into the wall, looked utterly baffled at the ease with which her move had been thwarted.
“Wow, you certainly got some nerve to try and defy me like that!”
“What are you talking about? You are my enemy, so me attacking you is only natural!”
Ren glared at Mia with a smile so vicious Mia found herself faltering a bit.
Why was it that Ren, who was supposed to be a Champion of Justice, was the spitting image of a villain, right down to the menacing look in his eyes? On that note, in regards to impressions gathered from their outward appearance, Shou looked like the cute, softhearted type of guy, while Aya had an air of mature beauty about her. Shou, who looked so soft at first glance, smiled affably at Mia.
“Mia, you can’t do that! If you cause too much mischief, I’ll sic Ren on you!”
“Some shabby Champion of Justice you are.” Aya eyed Shou, scandalized.
Just as Mia was giving her wand a whirl to cast another spell, someone called her name from directly behind her out of the blue. “Mia.”
“Aiee!” Mia involuntarily jumped.
When she turned around, she saw Subaru, who had snuck up on her at some point, looking down on her. He was very tall, well over six feet. He was also pretty big. Taken together, he was like a wall. Indeed, it would be stranger to not be shocked by having such a wall-like man creep up on you from behind. Yet, contrary to his large physique, Subaru’s voice was rather small.
He quietly asked, “Mia, what have you eaten for lunch?”
“Huh?” Mia stared at him blankly, taken aback by this completely unexpected question.
At that moment, Ren, who had moved to stand next to Mia again before she had realized it, apparently remembered something and butted in, “Oh yeah, Mia, you were eating something when I spotted you, was that your lunch? What did you have?”
“N-None of your business. Aah—aiee! Hya!”
Ren pulled her against him once more, pressing another kiss to her ear. “I told you I’d kiss you again if you didn’t do what I asked, didn’t I?”
“Hya-ha-ha, stop it! I had d-dried persimmons! Dried persimmons!”
“Dried persimmons?” Ren uttered right next to her ear in disbelief.
Wriggling her way out of Ren’s arms, Mia tried to flee the scene. However, a large arm stretched out before her, blocking her means of escape. It was Subaru. Where did he appear from again? As he fixed a grip on Mia’s wrist, he scrutinized her.
And then he opened his mouth hesitantly, murmuring, “Eating only dried persimmons for lunch is bad for you. Growing children like you need to eat more.”
“M-Mind your own business! O light, pour down with the rain!” Twirling her wand energetically, Mia fired a spell that required a considerable amount of magical power. One of her ‘killer moves’, so to speak.
A blinding light flashed around Mia, forming a ring not unlike an angel’s halo, and gently floated up into the sky. From there, the ring spread wide before bursting into tiny droplets of light, which poured down like rain towards the ground.
“Ooh!”
“Wow!”
“How pretty!”
“A rain of light, huh?”
While the group of four was busy being mesmerized by the fairytale-like display before them, Mia escaped into the air. From up above, she struck a daunting pose with her arms folded, clearly proud of herself. “Did you see that? It was one of the great magical arts of darkness, ‘Solassi’!”
“Solar seed?”
“It’s ‘Solassi’! It means ‘light and fairies’! I properly looked it up in the dictionary when I was thinking up a name for it!”
“Your naming sense is weirdly off. Like with that drai-whatever thing?”
“It’s ‘Draiocht’!”
It appeared as if she and Ren were performing a fast-paced comedic skit, but Mia was actually seriously and profoundly irate. Abruptly, she tossed her cape behind her, still floating in midair. This time, she consciously kept a distance so that no one could see up her skirt or sneak up on her.
“Anyway! I will leave it at this today! The next time we meet will be the end of you Crow Rangers!”
“Oh, so that great magical art of darkness or whatever was just a means of escape? So much for being called ‘great’.”
“Shut up, shut UP! This is the first time I’ve used this much magic in one day! Which is why my magical powers are, er…”
“…Your magical powers are?” Ren used his teasing voice again, to which Mia responded by sulking and avoiding his gaze.
“Ah, maybe you ran out of magical powers, like cars run out of gasoline?”
The expression Mia made at Shou’s words made it apparent that he had hit the nail on the head.
“N-No, see, it’s like… Augh! I’ll get you for this!” Mia spat a line like sore loser would and took off flying, clearly on the verge of crying.
***
“OH dear, now you made her cry. Shou, you shouldn’t pick on her too much!” Aya reprimanded.
“Yeah, but she’s so easy to mess with! The payoff is just too good, ehehehe.” Shou, whose evil smirk rivaled Ren’s, let out a chuckle.
“What a pity, I wanted to remind her to use an extra blanket when sleeping because the nights are still cold,” Subaru said in a concerned tone of voice.
“Subaru, you’re totally acting like her big brother!” Ren stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets, laughing at Subaru as he stared in the direction Mia had taken off in.
“Huh? Where’s Misaki, by the way?”
“He ran off to go on a date,” Aya answered, “I noticed he was in a particularly foul mood today, and it turns out he’s supposed to have a date with this girl he’s been in a long-distance relationship with for the past four years, so no wonder he’s been on edge…”
“Oh. I’m amazed he can do long-distance. Mad respect,” Ren folded his arms and nodded deeply, probably expressing heartfelt admiration. He knew he definitely wouldn’t be able to keep a long-distance relationship.
“Well everyone but Misaki’s here, so since it was our first outing as Champions of Justice and all, why don’t we go report to our chief?”
They nodded in unison to Shou’s proposal and headed into the police station.